– Be sure you’re reading With Leather’s This Week In Horrible-Looking People every Monday. This week we covered TNA, if you ever wanted a place to read me making TNA jokes. Spoiler: they are super easy.

Part of me knows that, but I can’t shake the feeling that the general audience is going to try to cut Bray’s legs off before he has a chance to run. I know he’s better than that but still, I hate people sometimes.

A “Waylon Mercy” chant would be much better than the “Husky Harris” chants he’s going to get. Unless he’s just so awesome that the ‘smart’ fans don’t bring it up.
I know someone has already said that it’s only a matter of time before he interacts with Cena, and Cena says, “You’re looking a little husky.”

That’s true. But, he was never on the main roster as “Johnny Curtis,” so not as many people know the name. But we *did* get “Albert” chants, obviously. You’re probably right, though. We probably won’t get “Husky Harris” chants unless/until someone like Cena points it out.

Most people forgot Waylon Mercy about 6 months into his run in the WWE. That shouldn’t be a problem. Also, if they do, they should have their IWC card removed from them because that’d be a tragedy to try and ruin an amazing character.

A few other notes: Cody Rhodes WAS that orange live, it was distracting. And during the Axel Cena match there was a pretty good drunken crowd dust up going on about 5 rows deep in the floor seating camera side. And ghost ambulance (our exact words as well) came ripping into the arena at a furious pace, I thought people were in danger.

I like how even Michael Cole admits “we all forgot about Curtis Axel.” Maybe if he stuck his arms inside of two gigantic wheels and fought Sweet Tooth in an ice cream truck of death he’d be more relevant.

No way, man. Curt Axel is good at wrestling. You can’t take circumstances like a fight in the crowd happening, or WWE’s shitty creative team writing “Triple H is suddenly immobile” or “Cena is worried Ryback is showing up, so runs out to take care of that” as examples of him being boring. Well, you *can*, but it’s falsifying evidence to try and prove a point.

Here’s the flip side. Axel has had a match with, and beaten, two of the biggest names in the company. He’s hyped up as a big thing by a manager who ONLY HAS STARS IN HIS STABLE. And beyond that, if you listened to the match with Cena, people were into it. Hell, they got stoked for the perfectplex. And the match was good. It wasn’t Cena / Punk good, but it was on point.

After they get through this initial installment of making Curtis into a thing, when the inevitable drop down to the midcard happens, he’ll be having awesome matches with any number of people.

I think Axel’s good in the ring, but he’s got that Sin Cara thing where he just can’t seem to perform well on WWE TV. When he was on NXT he was killing it, but when he was a tag champion or trying to anchor a match that was getting away from him on Raw last night, he just sorta fell apart. (Also, re: the boring thing, I am making jokes.)

But yeah, in WWE being told he beat big stars is all he needs. He didn’t actually beat either guy (we didn’t even find out he beat HHH until a week later), but he can say he did, and in a year (hell, by next week) he can say “I beat HHH and John Cena in my first two Raw matches” and have nobody fact check him. This is one of those times I wish wrestling was more like sports, where we could actually bring up what happened and have it matter.

Well, to be fair, he’s only had two matches so far, and one was against Triple H. Hardly a decent barometer. I think the real issue is that he doesn’t have a spot right now. RAW is filled with midcard heel types, so what does adding one more do? Also, i think he could use to call back to his dad a little more, but you run the risk of being stuck as “Mr. Perfect, Jr” forever. I really do think that match last night was more solid than you give it credit for, though.

I agree on wrestling’s long-term memory being fucking awful and limiting. But i think most of the issues have to be blamed on creative, as opposed to individual wrestlers. I don’t think Cena sat in the back and was all “then an ambulance will come out, so i’ll totally forget you and the match i’ve been wrestling for the past few minutes to go take a look at that”.

I dunno, all i’m saying is let’s let the dude hit his stride before putting him on a bus with Sin Cara and Tyson Kidd and shipping them off to Smackdown’s pre show.

That’s fair. I certainly want the best for him. Creative is absolutely to blame, because they are the worst, whoever they are. I just hope next week Axel doesn’t get a match against the Undertaker and win it when the Undertaker remembers he left his oven on and drives home to turn it off, you know? At some point the bad decisions from creative BECOME the character.

That’s a good point. It could easily turn into a farting Natalya thing where he’s just “forgetable curtis” or “stuttering matt morgan”, and that stigma sticks with him. I’m gonna cross my fingers that he gets knocked down from main events and is allowed to have matches soon.

If they were so high on him, why not let HHH get woozy or whatever, then have Axel beat the shit out of him and win outright? Why not have John Cena distracted by the ambulance, and have Axel roll him up for the win? I am seriously flabbergasted at the debut of this guy. They let Tensai get a Cena win when he debuted, why not this guy? So stupid, and one of 1000 reasons I find myself doing other shit on Mondays.

The main problem the last 2 weeks was absolutely the booking. Axel’s NXT stuff was entertaining as hell, and he’s come a looooooooooooong way on the mic (Which basically means he’s able to talk and sound like a human being instead of…whatever NXT Season 2 was). I just think THAT’S the guy we should be allowed to see when reintroducing him, and not the guy who comes out, talks a big game, gets trounced by Triple H, and then is about to lose to Cena, only to be saved by Ghostbulance.

WWE Creative’s thinking is “We’ll put him in with two of our biggest stars immediately, and he won’t BEAT them, but he can SAY he beat them, and that will get him over”.

Why not have him actually beat people first, though? Why not have him come out as Heyman’s new client 2 weeks ago, and get confronted by…I don’t know, Cesaro, who doesn’t understand why Heyman would “waste his time with a poor imitation”, when he could have Claudio under contract instead. Then Axel would beat him clean as a sheet, and look good doing so. I mean, I don’t WANT Cesaro jobbing clean on TV ever, but it’s what they currently use him for, so why not use that, and make Axel look like a Goddamn star in the process? Then the next week he can beat Kofi or Sin Cara or Zack Ryder or whoever, then stomp out Brodus Clay and Sweet T, one on Raw and the other on SmackDown. Now he’s got a solid 3 or 4 week win streak going, and people think he’s an important thing, so when he beats Cena by countout, no one thinks, “Curtis Axel only won because John Cena ran away”, and instead think “Man, Cena is a stupid goof, what is he doing?”

I’m not gonna lie, I was loling pretty hard when Axel was brought out as Heyman’s third client. But I think that was all residual memories of everything Joe Hennig has ever done on WWE TV to date. He looks good enough last night, and I think he can get better. They just absolutely aren’t doing it right so far.

TL;DR version: If you have a new guy that you want to look like a major star, don’t put him in with the guys who are already major stars, unless he’s going to ACTUALLY, and not TECHNICALLY, beat those major stars. Otherwise, he just looks like he can’t hang with them, which should never be the case for someone we’re supposed to take seriously.

Actually, it’s sort of an old-school heel move to have Axel not beat the faces but beat the faces. He can be obnoxious and arrogant about how he beat Cena and Triple H but he didn’t ACTUALLY beat them, thus getting heel heat.

Well, here’s the real thing. WWE doesn’t have time for all that. In the current WWE way of doing things, they don’t give enough time for things to build organically, so they have to make it look like Axel is a big deal in short order.

So 1: he’s debuted as Heyman’s new client. Which, actually, is perfect for a guy like Axel, it gives him some importance (he’s now in a stable with Lesnar & Punk). Also it works for him, as he’s a guy who thinks he’s never been given a second look, despite being Mr. Perfect’s kid. And 2: He now has wins over two of the top guys in the company. Not legit wins, he didn’t pin them clean, but there are no asterisks in the win column.

And now, in two weeks, they can draw on the fact that he’s in Heyman’s stable and has beaten HHH and Cena. To us, well whatever. But to the average fan, he’s on the way to being a guy. As opposed to taking two months of him beating known tomato cans in order to get a shrug of “oh yeah, i saw him beat zack ryder” from fans. It’s not great, but WWE’s timeline is so greatly accelerated that they almost have no other choice with people these days.

I’m warming up to Curtis Axel. I think he’s pretty solid in the ring and I genuinely think he’s really cool on the mike. I enjoyed his game has changed line (was hoping he was going to follow it up with saying it’s old and fat) and especially liked his conversation with Bret Hart where he casually told him to just go enjoy his appreciation night while he beats the WWE champion. He said it with such delightful confidence I completely believed he was going to do what he said.

Brandon, I love the point you made about the fans and the whole “We like Jericho now. We cheer him!” My question is – Does WWE know this and manipulate it OR is the crowd truly its own life form that can’t be predicted? Loaded question I know.

I really wish I wasn’t cynical about the main audience’s response to Wyatt. I really, really fear he’ll get “What?”ed into oblivion and WWE will think it is his fault rather than the fans being braindead morons. WWE radically needs a different type of fanbase at this point. You should be forcibly thrown out of any event if you start a “What?” chant. You should be beaten like those drunk people apparently were during last night’s main event if you start a smarky chant about another character. Those and other irritating audience tics are absolutely destructive for anyone who isn’t Cena or other established superstars, and they need to stop.

I asked this in the live thread, but seriously want to know: when did everyone turn on Jericho? I’ve recently turned on him because the last several months he’s been unbelievably unfunny and lazy. He doesn’t give a crap in the ring. That whole segment with Heyman was dreadful and I seriously don’t want to see Punk back so early. Let the man rest. WWE needs to suffer for a long time until they realize why they are so damn stupid.

RAW has become a regular chore to watch each and every week. I’m not entirely sure why I don’t just mute the broadcast and read the comments here instead of listening to Cole and Lawler laugh at their own stupid jokes while ignoring matches.

I think you answered your own question re: Jericho. For me, it kind of started with the lazy “Hey Punk, your dad’s a drunk!” stuff, but it only got *really* bad recently. But, face Jericho is never going to be as cool as heel Jericho, I guess.

If the next PPV wasn’t in Chicago, they probably wouldn’t bring Punk back already. But if he wasn’t there, the crowd would be chanting for him all night.

When you’ve been so rad for so long, maybe you just burn out? He’s clearly more interested in Fozzy or whatever. I’m still hoping his face character has just been a WWE facetroll who’s really a heel, and that maybe he’s the most brilliant performance artist ever.

You’re all happy now, but just wait. Bray Wyatt is going to debut and be awesome for a few weeks/months until John Cena decides to start a show with a monologue about how the new guy is a HUSKY. (Note: He won’t be in a feud with Wyatt at the time, it’ll just be one of his “shit on everyone all the time” promos”

The first stage of hell being a lumberjack match makes no sense even by WWE lumberjack match standards. Are we afraid either Ryback or Cena is going to try to make a break for it, but only during the first stage? Are we okay with them walking out during the other two stages?

It really doesn’t make any sense. Maybe Cena will lose that fall due to interference from a specific lumberjack, and they’ll use that to plant a seed for his next feud? I don’t know. Doesn’t seem like there’s much of a point.

If the reports that all the new guys are given a storyline before getting put on the main roster are true, what do you think they have in mind for Wyatt? Which face(s) would provide the perfect foil for his shtick? I’m drawing a blank…

Like SHough said, his first storyline has to be with someone who will actually play along and not just call them out on being a fake cult so he can seem like the coolest guy in the room (i.e. guys like Sheamus, Cena, HHH, Jericho).

I think the best case scenario is if they just terrorize the undercard for a couple months. Beating up Santino and being creepy until the audience gets used to them. Then they can move on to something more specific.

“After the match, Sandow and Rhodes grab microphones, sing a condescending version of ‘Happy Birthday’ to a recovering Orton and make “loser” hand gestures on their foreheads.”

Which is also why the Bellas should also get a ‘Best’ for walking on Natalia after she was spear’d, doing a hilariously heel pin and the taunt that follows. That was some incredible trolling those girls did.

I quit watching last night’s Raw after the Shield tag team match. I figured I would, at worst, miss a Rhodes Scholar match (which I did), but I didn’t think watching them lose would be tantalizing enough to sit through the rest of the shit I knew would be coming.

Bray Wyatt he the potential to be the best heel in years. Seriously between Wyatt, The Shield, Ziggler, Punk, Rhodes Scholars, Bryan after he turns in a couple weeks, Lesnar, and even a non-taling Ryback the WWE has the best crop of heels they’ve had in a looong time. Except Curtis Axel, he sucks.

Are we approaching some kind of anarchy where everyone on the roster is a heel? I mean, I think it could work (see Barrett vs Fandango– two guys *can* fight without one of them being a “good guy”); but they’re getting more and more lopsided in the ratio of heels to faces.

Perhaps. I think the problem is that WWE hasn’t pushed any credible faces beyond Cena and Sheamus. HHH only shows up to be the Toughest, Smartest blah blah blah, Kofi isn’t being taken seriously because no one’s taking either the US or IC titles seriously, Kane and D-Bry are locked in a Tag Team lovers’ spat, and Bo Dallas….just, no.

I really think WWE’s written themselves into a corner, where the only way to get out is to turn a couple of people and do that Changnesia thing Brandon hates so much.

I have unconditional love for the Wyatt Family but I have real fear that we’re week(s) away from the Wyatt Family vs Prime Time Players and/or the Usos for 10 weeks in a row since The Shield/Wyatt Family is not a workable storyline for WWE Creative

I know what you mean, I was hoping that the Wyatt Family come in and run an absolute muck on the whole roster… Only leaving the roster to gain help from the shield.. Not turning them face as such just more being needed to help the WWE.. But i’m sure the prime time player matches are far more likely lol

I get that you’re trying to make a point, but I’m sure you know that he was offering homophobia as an example of ‘things WWE does that [he] hates’ that he still doesn’t hate *as much* as the other thing he went on to talk about.

I’m certainly not going to pretend that I’ve never gotten on Brandon for being preachy at times; but you’re kind of grasping at straws in this instance.

I hear you, it wasn’t preachy in this case, it’s just that he brings it up as a term as much as possible.

It may lead to a larger rant…like the time Cesaro had a Seinfeld-esque European carry-all and Lawler said, “What is that, a purse?” and Brandon went ahead and called Lawler a homophobe…or it may be simply a toss-in…but it’s seemingly always gotta be there.

You can’t reply to your own comments under a different name to make it look like people are agreeing with you. I can see IP addresses on the back end. I would really appreciate it if you’d just comment like a regular person.

Why would I “make it look like people are agreeing with me” when replying to a different person? I changed my screen name because Sandow hasn’t done the apprentice thing in a long time. Guess it didn’t take effect right away. No matter, I never got a specific example, and I just don’t get why people have this obsession with outing people as racist/bigoted/homophobic. It’s just strange to me.

My offhanded comment about Heyman reforming Nexus was kind of a joke last night. But, now seeing how boss Husky Harris is, why not, man? CM Punk makes his triumphant return, Curtis has already debuted as this huge guy and beat HHH and Cena, Husky and his crew is coming soon. Shit, Otunga is their legal division, and 3MB plays birthday parties to make money.

I really want Curtis Axel to just beat everyone by count out, from Cena to JTG, that can just be his thing. He takes you outside, gives you a whooping, and just casually rolls back into the ring to spend the next ten seconds practicing victory poses. He can call himself the master of the ten count and feud with Big E Langston after claiming mathematically he’s twice as impressive.

Brandon, you’re usually so good at this, but I think you missed the point of the Jericho/Heyman segment (moreover, Jericho didn’t call him a fatty fat fat, he said “some people have called you everything from a genius to a walrus…”)

The original Jericho/Punk feud:

-Jericho leaves to play with Fozzy and dance with the stars;
-Punk ups the use of “Best in the World;”
-Jericho comes back with new troll persona;
-Jericho accuses Punk of copying him, and that even though he took a hiatus, taking said hiatus did not mean that he’s no longer the best in the world (at what he does);
-Punk objects, rationalizing that he was the one swimming with sharks while Jericho was dancing with stars;
-Alcholic father/drug-addict sister;
-Punk wins, twice.

The new Jericho/Punk feud:

-Punk now takes a hiatus;
-Jericho demands to know where Punk is;
-Heyman promises answers…in a few weeks;
-Jericho concludes that since Punk is now on hiatus, he can reclaim the BITW moniker, which was essentially the rationale Punk had for seizing the crown from Jericho;
-Heyman begs him not to call him that;
-Jericho demands a match, in that circumstance, and repeats catchphrase to antagonize Heyman into accepting;
-Heyman accepts;
-Jericho intimidates (mind you, doesn’t HHH style assault rape) Heyman with a serious warning that urges Punk not to take him lightly (despite winning the previous encounters).

That is not amnesia, dude. It’s relatively consistent, especially for WWE … and is actually similar to the Jericho/HBK set-up to the last honest man storyline with Jericho now in the Michaels role.

I think you’re making it work by downplaying all the ass that was involved the first time. You can’t just put “alcoholic father/dug-addicted sister;” onto a line. It was like a month and a half of super irrational, illogical heel bullshit. While I agree that the Heyman/Jericho segment works on its own, it does not take into consideration the ridiculousness of how Punk and Jericho have interacted (based almost solely on whether the crowd likes or dislikes them), nor does Jericho have any right to call himself BITW when he’s spent the last three months scoring dance routines and mostly failing to beat Fandango.

It skips what is actually happening on the show in favor of “you like Jericho he is great.” It’s like when they tagged Miz with Cena despite Miz having spent a year antagonizing him, because we like Miz now, and because it doesn’t matter to people. It’s just jumping right back to the end of a story.

Where do you guys see Daniel Bryan headed? I can’t tell if they’re setting him up to be a good guy or a bad guy once Team Hell No breaks up. Based on the reactions he’s been getting lately, it think they’d be foolish not to just make him a full-fledged good guy who’s sort of crazy but lovable and can still kick ass. Who knows? Just as long as he can get back to wrestling PPV singles matches, I’ll be happy I guess.

Admission – my first name is Wyatt, so I’m thoroughly enjoying all of these comments about how awesome Wyatt is and how excited people are to see Wyatt on RAW.

As for the actual reason of my comment, and I tweeted it to Brandon last night during the show, but last night marked two weeks in a row where Bradshaw said the EXACT SAME THING at two points in Sheamus’ matches. Last week, it was “When you’re wrestling Sheamus, and you hear a bunch of noise, don’t get up and look around and wonder what it is”, followed by, “No, Titus, don’t get up!”. Before that, when Sheamus did his horribly contrived “guy is on the apron, so I’ll hook his arms and club him in the chest ten times” spot, Bradshaw busted out “As Dusty Rhodes would say, ‘It’s time to go a-clubberin’!'” This week, he said the same things, only he said “Cody” instead of “Titus” and “As Cody’s daddy would say”.

Had he waited more than seven days, I might not have even noticed, but here’s hoping that we don’t see it again this coming RAW.

Also, does it feel like this is one of those “rebuilding” phases for WWE to anyone else? I’m talking the Hart/Michaels post-Hulkamania/pre-Austin era, or when Cena and Orton were first making their debuts. Between Fandango, the Shield, Curtis Axel, and now the Wyatt family all being treated as things of varying degrees, it almost feels like the WWE is committed to actually trying to build new stars, something I thought they’d largely given up on in the wake of Lashleygate.

You know, in retrospect, I shouldn’t have asked you to explain Bray Wyatt on twitter last night. I should have said “Hey, can you just show me an awesome theme song and some interesting looking clips in a video package so I can get an idea of why we’re all losing our minds?” I’m still hesitant (because WWE writers), but I can start to see some of this Wyatt Family fever everyone’s talking about…

Oddly enough, the Jericho/Heyman segment was my favorite one of the night. They just bounced off each other so naturally, and Heyman’s facial expressions were fucking hilarious (seriously, when he was just BEAMING over Brock, I about died), while I agree that the Jericho/Punk chapter really should be over with, there are definitely worse guys for Punk to come back on and go over.

Hell, I could see them bait-and-switching and just having Heyman bring out Axel at Payback instead.

I never thought that I would ever want to see “Changnesia” as something in the real world, because dammit was that a stupid waste of time, but it’s the perfect parallel to the reality of the WWE desired wrestling audience. Well played sir.

Things I am hoping for. Wyatt Family vs The Shield for all three belts. YES PLEASE!! Also did you like how Curtis Mcguiliaxel countered EVERY Cena move in the match? Not sure if Curtis is that damn good or so ungodfully boring that Cena just could’t finish a move. #BelieveInTheShield #WyattFamilyIsComing

Ok, so I’m fairly certain that Cena misspoke when he was setting up the match for Payback. I think he meant to say that it was gonna be a Three STOOGES of Hell match. Just look at the stipulations. Lumberjack match? Yep. They were lumberjacks. Table match? Clearly represents a carpenter’s table. Check. Ambulance match. Sure enough, they were doctors.

Obviously Ryback is Curly. Cena would be Moe. They’re just missing their Larry.

Just finally saw this weeks RAW….after I read the B&W. There really is no other way to do this. Bravo again, Brandon.

I have to admit, when I saw the crowd begin to turn around and face the other direction during the main, I was secretly hoping that they had noticed that The Shield was coming back out, simply to put an end to this crap.

I would actually like Randy Orton more if he had a bit of a cry after a match and needed some Sheamus hugging to make him feel better. It would definitely make me enjoy their tag team a lot more. I m also secretly hoping on the Wyatt family’s debut they end the shields streak because of course that nonsense with cena has been erased from existence.

The WWE video production team doesnt get enough credit if you ask me. Whenever they show highlight compilations or a video recap of a recent feud, it always makes whatever they’re promoting look so much more intense, and just better overall. The Wyatt Family promo this week was amazing. The second the music cued I got a shiver down my spine. It was a perfect introduction to the WWE viewers who haven’t seen NXT. Can’t wait until we get to see the eater of worlds on Raw.

I can’t help but remember Shawn Michaels’ retirement promo, when he singled out a member of the production team (I think his name was Adam), saying how talented the kid was and how good he made HBK look. I thought it was pretty cool, since, as you say, attention or accolades for the production team are so rare.